Report – Newcastle Still Haven’t Given Up On This Accomplished Central Midfielder

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

5:00pm Sunday, June 25th, 2017

Commented 79 times

There was news only yesterday that Newcastle were unwilling to pay the £17M Benfica wanted for their 28 year-old central midfielder Andreas Samaris, so we thought that was it on Samaris and Newcastle would move to another one of their targets in central midfield.

But Portuguese outlet O Jogo are reporting the two clubs are still trying to negotiate a deal for Samaris and say Newcastle have offered €15M (around £13M) for the 28 times capped Greek International with Benfica turning down the offer.

They report that Benfica still want the full €20M for their players – which is around the £17M that was quoted yesterday.

28 year-old Benfica central midfielder Andreas Samaris It’s difficult sometimes to know exactly what the truth is when you read some of the these reports and this is a good case in point.

It’s simply not clear if Newcastle are still interested in the player, especially when much cheaper alternatives such as 29 year-old Fernando from Manchester City are available for around £5M and the Brazilian has Premier League experience too.

O Jogo go on to say the current situation could be resolved in a matter of days and certainly Rafa Benitez and Newcastle fans would like that – one way or the other.

With some of these deals we should probably either do it and pay the money or end the negotiations and look at some of our other targets – since we seem to have lots of targets lined up due to Rafa doing his homework thoroughly.

We already have an article out saying the coming week is going to be fairly crucial for Newcastle to bring in some new faces and have a breakthrough in the transfer market before next Monday when preseason training starts.

We are still confident that can happen, but we’d be very surprised if one of the players coming through the door is Andrea Samaris.

There’s a hell of a lot of speculation going on, while there’s plenty of time for players to arrive it’s time for progress. I’m not sure if there’s any truth behind Rafa not being happy but tbf it’s just typical Newcastle.

Not sure about this waiting for Premiership money etc, this is guaranteed money , and any payments for transfers would take weeks before being made Also think there are a few red herring transfers out there from NUFC, to get message across that they will walk away if wages and fees are not right

Sing in the corner, I tend to skip reading them otherwise I’d be on Prozac . Shire brook, Maybe the lad has form we don’t know about with regards to self control ? The quayside has killed a few promising careers stone dead 🙂

From what I’d read, Ashley’s new place-man, Barnes is a legal who Ashley’s used in corporate acquisitions for SD. He was involved in the Scottish business that made all it’s staff redundant – not a nice sort I’d guess.

However, it was reported that he was parachuted in to the Club to support Charnley whom he’d asked to run deals past him before progressing any purchases. So, for all he’s a lawyer, I’ve no doubt he’ll have some financial experience – enough to act as an Ashley clone, approving sign offs – or not. He’s probably got little or no experience of top-flight football and people like him can’t be helping in the day-to-business of building a team for the Prem.

So, to get back to your question, there’s a strong possibility that he’s being more of a hindrance than a help.

Truth is we don’t know whether any one of the players we’ve allegedly been linked to are for real. We certainly haven’t been chasing all 120 of them, so to say we’ve missed out on any is pure speculation. Rafa will have given Penfold a list and told him to reveal it to nobody under any circumstances. You can’t rush these things when players are still on holiday. As I said before, it may be everything is tied up except the players signature, which won’t be available until their holiday is over. The club is hardly likely to say anything either, because, we’ve been gazumped in the past. Rafa’s back tomorrow so things will start to happen imo. Tudor said earlier he’d bumped into Penfold who said Wednesday, so let’s, see where that takes us. If Rafa does come out and say he’s not happy, then we have a problem, but as he’s, been spending time at home with his family, I doubt he’s been briefing the Daily Mail against the club. Not saying Ashley isn’t capable of snatching defeat from the Jaws of victory, because we all know he is, but I need to get it from a more reliable source than the Daily Mail before I believe it.

So Chelsea think Tammy needs protecting from the big bad boys in the north when London is awash with slease, drugs, dodgy clubs and wannabees. So they sent him to Swansea by the Sea for his own protection, hope he has bodyguards. If he’d stayed in Chelsea he could have watched all the games while munching prawn sandwiches. They just cant get over Cisses’s goal can they.

We don’t live in the dark ages where we need players to return from breaks to sign contracts. Will Hughes is currently with the u21s and has managed to sign for Watford. I said a few weeks back that nothing had changed under Ashley, this nonsense of him taking a backseat was just drivel which most fans lapped up because we have rafa.

I agree that we can’t be in for all the players we’ve been linked with but we’ve certainly missed out on targets and that’s not speculation. Unfortuanately it’s not as simple as handing over a target to list to Charnley, leaks happen in all facets of life and business, to think nufc is any different is comical.

Don’t forget we make a move for a player his agent could leak the info to get more money by drumming up interest or his club could to drive up fee, many things can happen which are out of Rafa’s control.

Unfortunately that isn’t the case any more give the player enough money he’ll want to put the top on someone offers more he’ll put that on instead. The days of Shearer turning down United to join his boyhood club are all but fairy tales now.

Our Toon, so which players were we definitely after then, because definitely leaves no room for error. If you know of any player we we’re definitely after then you must have good inside contacts. We might have been after Abrahams on loan before they put his wages up to 50k a week, but nothing was said after that. If anything, it said we were no longer interested. The truth is, we don’t know who Rafa’s after. He hasn’t once stated a name that I’m aware of. 120 linked players. Pure speculation, every one of them. And no doubt if signing them was an urgency we might have chased them down from holidays, but there’s no great rush. Why not just wait and see who we sign? The window hasn’t shut yet – has it even opened in Europe yet? We’ve been here, with the Rafa crisis already about four or five times since he joined. He can’t come round everybody’s house and tuck them in with reassurances that everything will be OK. I don’t get the panic. No need yet. And until I hear it from Rafa, I simply don’t believe it. He’ll let us know if there’s a problem, but so far he’s denied press reports of that he’s unhappy several times in the past, when the press were reporting he was ready to leave. He has a good relationship with us, he’ll let us know before the press do.

League Placement

health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones but it has been stabilized and has not spread further.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - it's mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the cancer is not spreading.

It is as it is - these things happen - and I will do my very best under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

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